Page 3 of The Heartless One
Sybil finally reached them, panting, her eyes wild as she stared at him. “Did you feel it?” she asked, sounding frantic. “Tell me you felt it as well.”
“I felt it.”
Jessamine looked between the two of them. “You can both feel it when someone is making a sacrifice?”
“It’s more than that,” he replied, leaning back on his palms and tilting his head to the sun. “A witch sacrificing to me makes ripples throughout the entire coven. She dedicates her magic to me, and therefore the sisterhood, when she does so. Which means not only can I feel it, but so can the rest of the coven. In this case, Sybil.”
“Another witch is sacrificing to you, Deathless One,” Sybil interrupted.
He could hear the reverence with which she said the words. But they only made him feel an icy tendril of fear, the ghost that walked with him through every step of his life. Witches always wanted to build their family. They wanted more women and more witches and a larger coven. They wanted a bigger house and more power, magic that streamed through them all until they had more than they could use in a lifetime.
They wanted all of that and more. Because witches alwayswanted.
They devoured the world, and even then, it wasn’t enough. Power was addictive, but so was the knowledge that they could protect themselves. He’d always known where their desire came from, just as he knew he was the only one who could satiate it.
Soon enough, they would pick apart his bones and suck them clean for one last drop of magic.
“Elric?” Jessamine said, and he was drawn back into the present. The two women stared at him as though he was supposed to answer a question he hadn’t heard them ask.
Pushing aside the anxiety, he focused on them instead of the churning memories inside of him. “What did you say?”
“Are we going to help her?” Sybil asked, presumably again.
He stared at his gravesinger, knowing what her answer would be. Jessamine had been through so much, but there was still a girl inside of her who wanted a family. She desperately needed connection, and he’d be lying if he said that didn’t sting.
For him, she was enough. He could end the world now and spend the rest of his immortal life with just her, and that would be a life he was pleased with.
But his Jessamine needed more than just that. So he was bound to provide it.
Sighing, he stood and savored the ache of his knees and the bite of a small pebble digging into the back of his thigh. Life wasn’t all about pleasure, and he would forever savor the slight sting of pain while he could still feel it.
The silhouette of their manor mocked him, an empty tomb that once had been filled with laughing witches and spells that had affected the entire kingdom. Now only the ghosts of those women wandered through those halls. His only solace was that those women were tethered to the muck and the mire of the same realm where they had imprisoned him.
“Come,” he said gruffly as he started toward the manor. “I will not speak of this where just anyone can hear our words.”
He could feel the looping of chains around his shoulders, digging into his flesh as the woman finished her sacrifice and the cow’s blood spilled in a field far from here. He was bound to witches. Elric had spent centuries serving them, feeding upon their sacrifices so they could gorge themselves on his magic. It felt like he was taking another step toward that same dangerous future.
Living in the same cycle he’d never been able to break.
Jessamine was practically vibrating by the time they made it back to the manor. No one spoke. The few times she tried to ask a question, both Elric and Sybil cast her a glance that said she needed to shut her mouth. But she didn’t understand why they weren’t speaking.
There was no one here. No one had come to the manor since she’d been here, nor for years before that. The last raid by the crown had made everyone quite certain there were no witches lingering in this house, thanks to Sybil. Surely no one would overhear them.
But no one said a word until they were inside. She trailed along behind them toward the kitchen, which was odd on its own. Elric preferred meeting in the tombs, or in the room with all of his siblings’ statues. He rarely met with them in the kitchen because that was where Sybil was at her strongest. Knowing that he was leading them there? Surely that wasn’t a good sign. He never gave Sybil the upper hand.
Which could only mean this was a conversation that she would not like.
Both she and Sybil filed past their god, each of them taking a seat at the island. Elric stayed by the door, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with her; instead, he stared at the floor. Sybil burst up from her seat and started pulling herbs down from where they hung on the ceiling, muttering to herself as she started cooking.
Opening her mouth to say something, Jessamine paused as Nyx boltedinto the room. Her familiar had clearly been hunting. There were cobwebs hanging from the kitten’s whiskers. She didn’t slow her wild careening run, somehow making the leap onto the table and skidding to a stop on the counter.
Once there, the tiny black cat merely cleaned her paws and started removing the cobwebs. As though they couldn’t start talking until the familiar was with them.
Shaking her head, Jessamine focused on the witch, who was currently piling a plate high with vegetables and herbs.
“You only cook when you’re nervous,” Jessamine said. “Another witch is a good thing, isn’t it?”
“In a way,” Sybil muttered. “Another witch could mean many things. Perhaps she is one of our coven that I missed from the old days. That would probably not be a good thing, considering some of the other witches in the coven were more bloodthirsty than others.”
